North Korea’s economic plight in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and natural disasters may give Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga a chance to meet with the nuclear-armed country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, foreign affairs experts say.
As the global virus outbreak has stifled North Korea’s trade with its major economic ally of China and massive flooding triggered by powerful typhoons has devastated the agricultural sector, Kim could extend an olive branch to Japan to receive aid to rebuild the stagnant economy.
During his tenure, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe failed to resolve the issue of North Korea’s abduction of Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 1980s, but his successor might push forward negotiations on it in a more effective way than his predecessor has done.
Fears, however, are lingering that if Suga readily accepts North Korea’s requests with the aim of settling the issue, Japan’s cooperation with the United States and South Korea in response to Pyongyang could become fragile, destabilizing the security environment in East Asia. The United States and its Asian security allies, Japan and South Korea, have no diplomatic relations with the North. The Korean Peninsula has been divided as the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a ceasefire. Washington, which fought alongside Seoul, technically remains in a state of war with Pyongyang.
I doubt that Japan will be willing to trust the notoriously untrustworthy Kim so readily, even if it means ending the long-drawn-out issue of Japanese abductees. Suga certainly would not want to upset good relations with the US, either.
I doubt that this issue will be resolved any time soon.
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